KU Med Center

If you’ve driven down State Line Road just north of 39th Street recently, you’ve seen the bustling construction under way. It’s a multi-million dollar addition to the University of Kansas Hospital that will include new beds, department offices and operating rooms.

And right there in the middle of the humming machinery and hard-hatted workers is Linda Mawby’s house.

A $25 million gift from the Hall Family Foundation has generated the funds needed by the University of Kansas to move forward with a critical building project on its medical center campus.

The gift, announced Tuesday at the University of Kansas Medical Center, gives the university most of the $75 million needed to construct a new medical education building. The new facility will replace an aging building that doesn’t meet modern classroom standards and needs more than $5 million in repairs.

The chairman of the Kansas Senate’s budget writing committee Wednesday defended the panel’s recent decision to withhold state funding for a new classroom building at the University of Kansas Medical School.

Sen. Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said he’s not convinced the university needs additional state funding to construct the building on its medical school campus in Kansas City, Kan.

Masterson said KU has the resources to complete the project if it’s the priority that university officials say that it is.

A device invented by scientists at the University of Kansas Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University may one day restore movement in people with traumatic brain injuries. It works in rats, and researchers are hopeful that the promise won't stop there.

The device is a battery-powered microprocessor designed to record electrical impulses in one part of the brain, and relay them to another part of the brain.

After more than 20 years of showing rotating artwork, mostly of local artists, an exhibition program at University of Kansas Medical Center has closed. Officials say it’s the impact of steep cuts to state funding. And the KU Chancellor defended the school's commitment to free speech Tuesday. But others are calling it censorship.

The University of Kansas is wrestling with how to cut $13.5 million from its budget over the next two years, but the funding reduction will not prompt the closing of the KU School of Medicine's campus in Salina

The KU Medical Center, which operates the school, will have to absorb more than $8 million in cuts. KU spokesman Jack Martin says closing the Salina campus, and scaling back operations in Wichita are no longer on the table.

University leadership from around the state met with the Kansas Board of Regents today to discuss how to adjust to nearly $49 million in cuts from the state’s higher education budget.

The move was approved by lawmakers over the weekend, and include cuts to the state’s six universities in addition to community colleges, technical colleges and Washburn University. Cuts were also made to student financial assistance programs, the Board of Regents Office, and adult education programs Board Spokesperson Vanessa Lamoreaux said.

The first Kansas legislative session since 1861 to extend into June is over. But the budget plan passed early Sunday is a frustration for a number of agencies and institutions; one is the Kansas University Medical Center.

Officials aren’t yet sure what the new budget will mean; in a speech this spring, KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little worried about a projected cut and the wide reach, particularly on the university’s satellite operations.

The Kansas House has passed a bill requiring the University of Kansas Medical Center to establish a stem cell research center. The Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center would work only with adult stem cells. Supporters say the center could lead to new medical treatments.

Representative Dave Crum is a Republican from Augusta.

“It is very much within the authority of the legislature to create policy that we think is in the best interest of the state."

Topkea, KS – Governor-elect Sam Brownback today named his choices to head two health and human services agencies.

Dr. Robert Moser will head the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Moser currently works at the University of Kansas School of Medicine's Wichita branch. Before that he worked with Greeley County Health Services.

Moser says one of his priorities will be focusing on preventative medicine.